


Fault Line

by constantlyinflux



Category: Blade Runner (Movies), Blade Runner 2049
Genre: Blood, Explicit Language, Gen, Harassment, K's day isn't getting any better, Non-Consensual Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:50:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantlyinflux/pseuds/constantlyinflux
Summary: I don’t think I slept properly since I saw that less-than-a-second scene with K and Nandez that didn't make it into the movie. Also, there’s a lot of repressed stress under K’s skin. Like, a lot.





	Fault Line

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I owe thanks to Nabokov's Pale Fire Poem and Ryan Gosling’s extended dropping-in sequence. Also, shamelessly (as if!) stolen from peonies: the bolt gun, because that image is so strong it just stayed with me.

“You’re dead, Skinjob,” Nandez hisses into his ear and jabs two fingers hard against K’s throat, pushing his head up.

K keeps his eyes down and doesn’t respond, the struggle to keep afloat in what seems like a vortex of pure _feeling_ already occupying all his senses.

“You’re a walking corpse already, mutt,” Nandez whispers so close to his ear the man’s breath feels like a feathery touch against K’s skin. He smells clean. Nandez always does. Like clean skin and faux leather and faint mint. “Do you want to run now? Try to run. Come on. Just give me one reason to put a fucking bullet through your pretty face.” He grabs K’s chin, fingers and thumb digging into his jaw and cheeks, and steps very close, the right side of his body touching K’s. Even this close, Nandez towers over him, using all of his broad shoulders and height advantage over K to physically dominate him. K knows better than to step back. This kind of alpha male power play is so familiar to him, and so plain obvious at that, it feels almost intimate, like greeting old friends.

K just doesn’t like to have people in his face. At the end of the day, he just wants to get away from anyone and the eighty-story walk up to his flat is a daily exercise in restraint, the dread of physical contact a constant itch, like his skin is crawling. Just that one touch too many. A hand heavy on his shoulder, against his chest, a deliberate brush against his side. Just that one touch that he fears will one day drive him over the edge, punch that sneer with his blaster, put that guy through the wall or down the stairs to watch his skull crack open on the hall tiles like a spilt soup.

_And dreadfully distinct against the dark. Dark._

It’s never as effective. Baselining himself. It’s never as effective as the real thing. And yet the words come to him like a mantra every day.

_Do you have dark thoughts? Dark._

_Did they program you to have dark thoughts? Dark._

It’s a struggle compared to numbness. It’s the struggle against drowning compared to the faint tingling in lips and fingertips when your whole body goes numb, then hot, then slack.

_Do you think it’s some kind of corruption these dark thoughts? Dark._

_Maybe it’s a spot of rust or something? Dark._

He never understands why it’s affecting him so much when he’s just cleared Baseline, because it shouldn’t. But when he’s walking up these steps, counting, he feels open, raw to his surroundings. Every touch intensified. Like he can hear the electric current of skin against fabric crack in his ear. Myriads of particles of skin and clothes and dust exploding with every movement. The human smell of poverty and resignation, stress and testosterone is nauseating.

_Who did you get your darkness from?_

“Run!” Nandez breathes against his ear, the faintest brush of lips against skin a stark contrast against the dull pressure on his jaw.

_Dark._

K grits his teeth, breathing hard through his nose. Nandez must feel the muscles clench under his fingers. K’s heart is pounding against his ribs so strong he’s sure the other man must be able to hear it. Nandez pulls his face round to look at him straight. Their noses are almost touching. Breath ghosting over his skin. K keeps his eyes down. He doesn’t really see anything anyway. Images flicker through his mind, myriads of them. Memories, recent, old, real, implanted. Fake? They are in constant rhythm with his frantic heartbeat. A low tremor vibrates through his body, head to toe. K tries to control it but fails. Fails at everything. He feels like drowning in so much _emotion._ He’s desperately grasping at straws that just disintegrate under his fingers. He wants to hold onto something, anything, and there is just nothing. There is nothing there. He’s trembling under Nandez’ fingers and K feels the need to vomit.

“My god,” Nandez huffs. “You’re so far off your baseline. Not even Joshi will be able to get you out of it this time, I can promise you that.”

K ducks his head sideways. Just a fraction. Breaking the other man’s grip and their mirrored faces. It’s a split-second, really, K’s involuntary and very defective evasion, the reflexive twitch in Nandez’ body as a reaction to this, K’s mind screaming at him _Don’t move!_ , his body tensing up in preparation for the blow that is to come. Then the door opens. K closes his eyes.

There is a moment of silence in which nobody seems to move.

“Joshi wants him.”

A beat. Then nothing.

“Come on, Nandez. Make this easy for me.”

K keeps his eyes closed, his body so tense it feels like it wants to raise itself up on its toes. He hears the faintest rustle of faux leather on polyester, the shuffle of fabric on skin, the scraping of a boot’s sole across the tiled floor. They are so close already, Nandez barely needs to shift his weight and then his body is flush against K’s. Shoulders to chest to hips, one heavily booted foot between K’s, one leg between his. Nandez’ clean-shaven cheek rasping against K’s stubble, K’s chin against the other man’s shoulder. Their hands at their sides brushing against each other like the shy first move before holding hands. Nandez turns his head inwards just the slightest bit, pressing his lips against K’s ear.

“You’ll never arrive at Basement,” he murmurs. “I’ll make sure of that.”

His hand comes up to grab K’s jaw again, his lips sliding from K’s ear to his cheekbone, his nose pressed against K’s temple.

“I will end you.”

Then he is gone, leaving behind a cold and void space. K’s sense of direction and relation tumbles for a second. He feels himself beginning to sway with disorientation and opens his eyes. The room spins into existence, orienting itself along the lines of up and down and left and right. The images are gone. The trembling is gone. The nausea is gone. His heart seems frozen, his breath pressed flat against his ribs. He stares at the dirty white door within the dirty white tiles that leads to Baseline Test Room 87. The one he had just left when Sergeant Nandez caught him in the security lock between 87 and the corridor. For a second, K had thought Nandez was supposed to take him to Joshi but then he saw the two guards outside on the corridor, deliberately turning their backs to the door. SOP is two guards at the door of every active Baseline, a third as an extra escort when a test failed. Provided the subject seems stable. That third wasn’t Nandez. He would never have been this quick after getting the call. He must have been present in the interrogation room. An illicit attendance as per BT regulation. Not that this matters now.

“KD6. Come on.”

The man behind him. The voice K has recognized as belonging to Sergeant Tos. K turns around. Tos, same height but broader and almost bald, is standing outside in the corridor, between the two guards that now face K. Tos is the third. He gives K an averse look. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay.” It’s not a question. K’s gaze falls to the military-issue bolt gun at his hip. A memory flashes up, a real one.

 _A man on the floor, arms and legs outstretched, pressed down by the weight of six bodies all over him, knees and feet and the heels of hands digging into his joints. He’s struggling, like a thing sentenced to death but clawing at life with bleeding fingertips. Yet, he is already dead._ You’re a walking corpse, mutt. _He’s roaring. And his screams echo through the halls like nothing K has ever heard coming from a living being. They drown out the shouts and cries of the LAPD staff swarming the scene, guns trained at the struggling, writhing, screeching tangle of limbs and flesh on the floor. The officer kneeling on the man’s back grabs a fistful of short hair with his left hand and slams the man’s face into the floor. Blood explodes on black tiles. The officer’s right hand comes up, pressing a bolt gun against the back of the Blade Runner’s skull and pulls the trigger. The screaming immediately stops._

K gives a curt nod, his eyes trained on the ground again, then he moves to leave the security lock and stand between the three guards, keeping his demeanor as tame as possible. The two men who have let Nandez pass already show clear signs of anxiety and stress, fidgeting with their holstered weapons. They are supposed to stay close but obviously just want to get away from him at the same time. K can feel their gazes on him like he’s about to bolt and he gives his movements a certain sense of slow predictability. Submissive.

He can feel Tos look at him, too, but K doesn’t raise his eyes. His heart hammering in his chest like drums in an empty room. “Don’t know how you can be so calm about your situation.” Tos has a hand against the handle of the taser bat at his other side. “C’mon.”

K follows Sergeant Tos down the corridor, the others at his side but slightly behind him. No one’s confronting him this time. He only ever remembers being left alone in these halls when he’s been accompanied by guards. That doesn’t always keep them from cursing at him or accidentally bumping into him, and usually nobody cares about that. Especially not those escorting him. But this time. This time looks serious. Bolt guns and taser bats and three guards mean business. The officers and staff in the corridor stop in their tracks to watch them walk by. Doors open and heads poke out. The average volume decreases by a significant amount.

“You bringing him down to Basement, Tos?”

So very loud against the whispers.

“He’s gotta go to Joshi first,” Tos replies in a neutral tone.

Chuckling. And snorts.

“Hey, Skinner! How about you get down on your knees for the LT. I’m sure she can make use of your pretty mouth. Maybe she’ll give you a head start, if you’re good with it!”

Laughter erupts all around him.

“And if not, she’s the last thing you’ll taste before they bolt you.”

“I’d die happy with that.”

Laughter.

“We know that, Cole!”

“Hey, K9, do they even program you with stuff like that?”

“I doubt he knows what to do with his tongue.”

“I could show him.”

Jeering.

“You even know what to do with your dick, KD6?”

“How should he? Who’d let themselves get fucked by a dog?”

“I bet he’s a virgin.”

“Are you a virgin, KD6?”

“Someone should take you hard before they retire you! Would be a shame to waste that ass!”

“What do you know about his ass?”

“Rosier from Maintenance says–”

“Oh, _come on_ …!”

The two guards at his side are leering but nobody comes close to him. Tos keeps a blank face while walking them through the main corridor and K keeps his eyes level. The words and laughter are washing over him. He calls up the image of the horse to block out the sounds around him. The horse tucked into the pocket of his coat that he left in his car. Foolish, he thinks now and hopes it’s still there. That feel of dry wood against his fingertips. The smell of cold smoke and dust…

The man’s face barges into his existence.

Coffee breath and sweat stench.

A hand on his ass.

He’s too close.

Tos pushes him away. A split second before K would have snapped his wrist. Yelling erupts around them. Tos grabs K by his collar and half drags, half pushes him through the crowd that has gathered by now. K, like Tos, is acutely aware how the group dynamics are bordering on threatening, just an inch from tilting to aggressive. K struggles to blend out the sneering comments and filthy laughter, the bodies pushing against him. But the familiar white noise won’t come to him.

“Come on, Tos, just give us a minute. Joshi can have him later.”

_…put a fucking bullet through your pretty face._

“I’ll ride him hard for her so he’ll be a good boy!”

_A real boy!_

“I bet he moans like a doxie, fucking whore he is!”

_You’re a walking corpse already, mutt._

“Are you a Doxie, KD?”

_…of woman born. Pushed into the world…_

“Are you Joshi’s doxie?”

_Wanted…_

“I bet that’s why she likes to have you around so much.”

_Loved…_

“You go down for her or does she fuck you?”

K feels an unfamiliar warmth creeping up his neck and cheeks, a tight heat knotting low in his stomach. His heart is racing. Breath coming in shallow gasps through slightly parted lips. He’s so out of focus in a situation more than familiar to him. And he can’t find it. He can’t find it again.

“Get on your knees like the fucking slut you are, Skinner!”

Tos drags him around the corner, breaking free of the crowd.

“Yeah, just leave him with us, Tos. Put him on his knees right here. We could take turns!”

The officers leaving the elevator stop dead in their tracks and look at the scene unfolding in front of them with pure curiosity. Tos shoves K past them and into the small cabin. The two guards follow him inside and immediately occupy the rearward corners. K turns around, but the last thing he sees over Tos’ shoulder are the faces sneering at him before the door closes.

Silence.

Tos is facing him, the space inside the elevator way too small to be convenient. The sergeant looks at him and for an instant their eyes meet. Tos raises an eyebrow. And K immediately drops his gaze. He presses his lips together to stop himself from panting like he just sprinted though this corridor. Draws in a shaky breath through his nose, the sound of it unnaturally loud in this silence. He’s trembling. His whole body is shaking, nails digging into palms, fists so tight the skin is white over his knuckles. Teeth grinding against each other, his jaw hurts. He swallows. And feels the heat on his cheeks while cold sweat is running down the nape of his neck.

Tos snorts, then shakes his head slightly. “Good fucking god, they should really put you down.”

_Boom, boom, boom._

His heart hammering against his ribs.

_Boom, boom, boom._

“Joshi will drop him faster than you think. Just look at him.”

_Boom, boom, boom._

And they are all way too close to him. Heat radiating off their bodies like furnaces.

_Boom, boom, boom._

“They have a nice little cell for you down at Basement, KD6. You ever been there?”

_Boom, boom, boom._

He has.

_Boom, boom, boom._

The man to his right pushes past him and presses the muzzle of his bolt gun against K’s forehead.

_Boom, boom, boom._

Cold against his hot skin.

“Quick and easy, like a dog in heat.”

_Boom, boom, boom._

“Enough.” Tos pushes the gun down. The elevator stops with a bing. The doors slide open.

This section of Level 279 is always quiet. Most of the offices here belong to staff directly reporting to Joshi. Handpicked. Access only with authorized key cards.

Tos motions for him to follow and K steps out of the elevator. He walks among the triangle of his personal guard like a man on death row. He could close his eyes and follow the familiar lines of the corridors just by unconsciously counting the steps. This is the first time since he was picked up in front of Dr. Stelline’s lab that nobody is talking to him and K loses himself in that absence of noise.

_Someone lived this, yes._

Loses himself in the way his body is still trembling.

_This happened._

Loses himself in that frantic heartbeat.

He doesn’t remember if he has ever seen so much kindness. White on white on light gray. Tranquility captured in a bubble. How can something so gentle and soft exist in this world?

And with that, his tumbling heart finds a new beat. Still full of fear, full of terror, but full of life, too. There’s a new kind of strength now. It hurts in his chest, every aching contraction a reminder that he is _alive_. He doesn’t know yet how to reign in his raging emotions or how to control the rising sickness. He has never _felt_ so much before in his life. But he thinks of white, and when they reach the door to Joshi’s office, K knows one thing with the absolute certainty only someone sentenced to death can reach.

He doesn’t want to die.

 


End file.
